Digital Security Recommendations

Safeguard your devices and data: Lots of data moves between people, devices, systems and storage services. It is incumbent on you to keep your (and maybe even some shared lab/research) data secure. Here are a few suggestions on what is available or can be done to add an initial layer of protection at the operating system level. Once you’ve made sure to create a system-level password for your favourite device < insert smiley face icon here > the main thing to remember is don’t forget your password!

ZIP with a password

Built-in to most OSes is the support for the .ZIP format. Right-clicking in Windows or Mac OSX gives you the option to compress and secure individual files or folders.

We misplace and sometimes lose USB keys, imagine forgetting or worse losing your portable device. Believe me it happens, to the best of us. Have your User ID and that passkey configured, turn on the find my device feature and if you are very sensitive about your files, maybe consider OS-level encryption (after of course always doing your backups). Here are some links to the major OS encryption options (read the warnings!).